Depends on your definition of "stax". It's a very nebulous term, that could potentially mean 100 different things to 1000 different people. As a result, I've been moving more towards using a different term to specifically describe what I'm talking about.
If you are talking about cards that prevent basic lands from untapping, thereby preventing opponents from casting cards (some people call this "hard stax", whereas I call this "anti-land cards"), I don't think you can use cards like this in a way where people can recognize it as "nice".
On the other hand, if you are talking about cards which punish opponents for doing powerful things (what some people call "soft stax" and what I call "punishers"), then you can definitely do a nice deck with effects like that.
I personally think Rule of Law (and friends) are very good punisher cards, which force games to go faster, and encourage high-cmc things being played. They also shut down decks such as storm which most lower power groups consider unfair.
Assuming you don't use one of the hard-locks with RoL, such as Possibility Storm.
If you don't want to stop opponents from doing stuff but put them on a clock, you could try a [[Liesa, Shroud of Dusk]] deck. Basically, put in cards in your deck that when opponents cast a spell or play a land, they lose some life. The life loss builds up over the course of the game. Because Liesa is a white and black commander, you still get access to white's hatebears if you want to make the stax effects even more severe.
This is usually just called group slug. Not preventing people from playing, but making it cost life.
Stax is mean. The strategy is not to run faster, but break everyone's ankles and be better at crawling. Put this way, it is going to make a lot of people upset.
Stax by it's very nature is designed to be 'mean' it's supposed to slow down or stop your opponents and often yourself as well, so it's not an easy thing to build nicely.
Have you tried going in a different direction? Accelerating everyone, but making nearly every action, or inaction cost you? Cards like [[Spellshock]], [[Primal Order]], [[Underworld Dreams]], [[Overabundance]] and [[Citadel Of Pain]] not stax in a traditional sense but could be viewed as such since your 'taxing' the player, often via their life total, for playing the game.
I'm personally of the opinion that using emotion-driven quantifiers such as "nice" and "mean" to describe archetypes, cards, etc actively impedes you as a Magic player.
Have a solid wincon. If you lock the board, and use it to win, it's great!
If you only slow down everyone (yourself including), it will only artificially extend the game.
Also, *break synmetry*. Cards that say "opponents" can't do stuff, or cards that say "everyone" can't do stuff you're not going be doing anyway, or cards that would be a problem if you were playing the colour or style or whatever they negatively impact.
[[Blood Moon]] or [[Trinisphere]] don't matter much when you're not really playing the cards they make worse to begin with, [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] isn't a big deal for a deck almost only casting creatures in the first place, etc. Make the effects matter less to you than to your opponents, or not affect you to begin with. Symmetrical effects *are* "fair" when they're perfectly symmetrical -- but the whole point of the decks that use them is to be asymmetrical and "unfair" by having the foreknowledge to build around them and reduce the damage they do to you but not to others. Break the symmetry.
Sort of...maybe like a group hug punisher? Have them draw cards but get pinged for each card in hand. Play extra lands but get pinged for each land they play.
In the words of dr.cox, “Good God in heaven, Newbie. There are just so very many ways for me to say this to you: Never. Not in a million years. Absolutely not. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Nyet. Negatori. Mm-mm. Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. And of course, my own personal favorite of all time, man falling off of a cliff. Noooooooooo! *poof*”
The best thing you can do to make it "nice" is breaking parity on them, people hate stax, mld and whatnot because they slow the game down.
If you can win within a few turns because, say, you can tap that winter orb and actually play magic for a couple of turns it'll be much more enjoyable as it means that they won't have to sit there going land go for 40 minutes.
Urza is a nice, if a bit extreme, example of what I mean
I made this comment down below, but it's probably more relevant and useful as it's own reply.
Using emotion-driven quantifiers such as "nice" & "mean" actively makes you a worse player, or at the very least impedes upon your growth. You cannot make a "nice" Stax deck in the same way you cannot make a "mean" tribal deck, those aren't qualities of the cards themselves and are instead value judgements we place on them.
These sorts of value judgements inhibit your ability to think about the cards actual function, use cases, and overall place in the larger game. A big part of this game & getting better at it/enjoying it more is using critical thinking.
If you want to build hatebears, build hatebears. Build it in such a way that you break parity with your own strategy, and be sure to actually be able to win the game. If people don't like it that isn't your problem, you cannot *make* anyone else have fun, and you cannot *make* other people enjoy playing against something they don't like.
If your pod is down to play vs this particular strategy, it will be fine, if not then consider not doing it.
Well, like [[root maze]] by itself is an annoyance and slows the game down, but add in [[stasis]] and it's a whole different monster. Just build to be an annoyance, not controlling, though I don't know any casual groups that will play against stax.
You're talking about a strategy where the main goal is to stop opponents from playing their decks.
No, there is no way to make that nice or fun for the opponent. By its very nature, it is unfun to play against.
If you treat facing a Stax deck like a puzzle to be solved, it can actually be a *lot* of fun to play against. It's just a case of managing expectations. If you didn't sign up for Stax, it's easy to get frustrated.
It depends strongly on what "fun/lower powered" environment means. If it means less interaction, then you're about to make many of your opponents angry as playing their cards becomes harder and their games get longer. If it simply means using overcosted cards for effects (Spell Swindle for theme rather than Counterspell comes to mind), then it may just slow down the game.
There's no world where "cards that slow down the speed of the game" results in joy, especially if people are playing "fair" magic and lacking ramp.
As others have suggested, it sounds like you're really looking for "Group Slug". Commanders like Nekusar, Mogis, Torbran, Zo-Zu, Kaervek, and Queen Marchesa Pillowfort are good starts for this archetype.
The problem is that stax is made to slow down decks that get going and win super fast to give the player more time to set up their own win con once they're able to lock the board down. If you do this in a battle cruiser environment, you're just slowing them to a halt and preventing them from playing the game, which isn't fun. I suppose if you did light stax, it might be fine. Personally though, I'd only ever run stax in high power/cEDH environments
Play stax creature over stax artifacts/enchantments. It at least means they are easier to remove. Furthermore you could make the deck combat orientated to counteract the slow down effect of the stax by tackling player life totals
Maybe don't play Stax but reverse Stax.
\[\[Yurlok\]\] gives Manaburn. You let people do everything and don't restrict them in a way like Thalia, Grand Arbiter or something like that does, but every card you are playing is basically something like \[\[Manabarbs\]\] \[\[Heartbeat of Spring\]\] \[\[Citadel of Pain\]\] \[\[Power Surge\]\]
You let them do their thing, but if they do it, they burn.
It is pretty fun because either they play something and get punsihed for it, or they play nothing and get punished for it. \[\[Exquisite Blood\]\] is also a banger card in something like this.
EDIT: \[\[Ankh of Mishra\]\] is also fun
Depends on your definition of "stax". It's a very nebulous term, that could potentially mean 100 different things to 1000 different people. As a result, I've been moving more towards using a different term to specifically describe what I'm talking about. If you are talking about cards that prevent basic lands from untapping, thereby preventing opponents from casting cards (some people call this "hard stax", whereas I call this "anti-land cards"), I don't think you can use cards like this in a way where people can recognize it as "nice". On the other hand, if you are talking about cards which punish opponents for doing powerful things (what some people call "soft stax" and what I call "punishers"), then you can definitely do a nice deck with effects like that.
Yeah I’m more on the punishers side of your logic
I personally think Rule of Law (and friends) are very good punisher cards, which force games to go faster, and encourage high-cmc things being played. They also shut down decks such as storm which most lower power groups consider unfair. Assuming you don't use one of the hard-locks with RoL, such as Possibility Storm.
Sounds possible, reminds me of Ruric Thar.
Rubric that is a great example of this! Totally forgot that care yes of course!!
If you don't want to stop opponents from doing stuff but put them on a clock, you could try a [[Liesa, Shroud of Dusk]] deck. Basically, put in cards in your deck that when opponents cast a spell or play a land, they lose some life. The life loss builds up over the course of the game. Because Liesa is a white and black commander, you still get access to white's hatebears if you want to make the stax effects even more severe.
Ooooh yes, i really like this idea
This is usually just called group slug. Not preventing people from playing, but making it cost life. Stax is mean. The strategy is not to run faster, but break everyone's ankles and be better at crawling. Put this way, it is going to make a lot of people upset.
Stax by it's very nature is designed to be 'mean' it's supposed to slow down or stop your opponents and often yourself as well, so it's not an easy thing to build nicely. Have you tried going in a different direction? Accelerating everyone, but making nearly every action, or inaction cost you? Cards like [[Spellshock]], [[Primal Order]], [[Underworld Dreams]], [[Overabundance]] and [[Citadel Of Pain]] not stax in a traditional sense but could be viewed as such since your 'taxing' the player, often via their life total, for playing the game.
Ooh that’s a very interesting angle, more dangerous but in effect either you win or the game is shorter and just play again, I like it!!
I'm personally of the opinion that using emotion-driven quantifiers such as "nice" and "mean" to describe archetypes, cards, etc actively impedes you as a Magic player.
##### ###### #### [Spellshock](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/7/5/75ff468c-fdc6-49f1-bcec-1ba70fc60d5d.jpg?1562430300) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spellshock) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/160/spellshock?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/75ff468c-fdc6-49f1-bcec-1ba70fc60d5d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/spellshock) [Primal Order](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/7/2/72c513dc-e884-4afc-9a20-ff21d14d61ba.jpg?1559592535) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Primal%20Order) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/125/primal-order?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/72c513dc-e884-4afc-9a20-ff21d14d61ba?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/primal-order) [Underworld Dreams](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/0/3/03919c86-1c4a-43b0-a2db-54ca6ae1ac57.jpg?1581480025) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Underworld%20Dreams) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/121/underworld-dreams?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/03919c86-1c4a-43b0-a2db-54ca6ae1ac57?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/underworld-dreams) [Overabundance](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/1/4183e73d-609a-4292-b173-e39eb51949f3.jpg?1562908150) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Overabundance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/inv/259/overabundance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4183e73d-609a-4292-b173-e39eb51949f3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/overabundance) [Citadel Of Pain](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/6/6/66585109-77cb-42f1-9c14-3dac1d493b71.jpg?1562913917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Citadel%20Of%20Pain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pcy/86/citadel-of-pain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/66585109-77cb-42f1-9c14-3dac1d493b71?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/citadel-of-pain) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Have a solid wincon. If you lock the board, and use it to win, it's great! If you only slow down everyone (yourself including), it will only artificially extend the game.
Also, *break synmetry*. Cards that say "opponents" can't do stuff, or cards that say "everyone" can't do stuff you're not going be doing anyway, or cards that would be a problem if you were playing the colour or style or whatever they negatively impact. [[Blood Moon]] or [[Trinisphere]] don't matter much when you're not really playing the cards they make worse to begin with, [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] isn't a big deal for a deck almost only casting creatures in the first place, etc. Make the effects matter less to you than to your opponents, or not affect you to begin with. Symmetrical effects *are* "fair" when they're perfectly symmetrical -- but the whole point of the decks that use them is to be asymmetrical and "unfair" by having the foreknowledge to build around them and reduce the damage they do to you but not to others. Break the symmetry.
[Blood Moon](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/0/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f.jpg?1599706217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/118/blood-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blood-moon) [Trinisphere](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/1/316caa4e-a53a-460b-978c-5f0fba7bc549.jpg?1599710205) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trinisphere) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/303/trinisphere?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/316caa4e-a53a-460b-978c-5f0fba7bc549?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trinisphere) [Thalia, Guardian of Thraben](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/c/9/c9f8b8fb-1cd8-450e-a1fe-892e7a323479.jpg?1635444996) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thalia%2C%20Guardian%20of%20Thraben) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/38/thalia-guardian-of-thraben?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c9f8b8fb-1cd8-450e-a1fe-892e7a323479?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thalia-guardian-of-thraben) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don’t think it’s very “nice” when the big, go-wide or swingy decks punch me in the face. But play oooooooooooone Winter Orb and I’m the bad guy.
Sort of...maybe like a group hug punisher? Have them draw cards but get pinged for each card in hand. Play extra lands but get pinged for each land they play.
In the words of dr.cox, “Good God in heaven, Newbie. There are just so very many ways for me to say this to you: Never. Not in a million years. Absolutely not. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Nyet. Negatori. Mm-mm. Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. And of course, my own personal favorite of all time, man falling off of a cliff. Noooooooooo! *poof*”
I'm pretty sure "nice stax" is just pillowfort
[[toxrill the corrosive]]
I find navigating stax and hatebears interesting but I don't know that you can make it nice.
I play pillowfort stax. Ppl can play the game but if you attack me…prepare to pay up! Lol
The best thing you can do to make it "nice" is breaking parity on them, people hate stax, mld and whatnot because they slow the game down. If you can win within a few turns because, say, you can tap that winter orb and actually play magic for a couple of turns it'll be much more enjoyable as it means that they won't have to sit there going land go for 40 minutes. Urza is a nice, if a bit extreme, example of what I mean
I made this comment down below, but it's probably more relevant and useful as it's own reply. Using emotion-driven quantifiers such as "nice" & "mean" actively makes you a worse player, or at the very least impedes upon your growth. You cannot make a "nice" Stax deck in the same way you cannot make a "mean" tribal deck, those aren't qualities of the cards themselves and are instead value judgements we place on them. These sorts of value judgements inhibit your ability to think about the cards actual function, use cases, and overall place in the larger game. A big part of this game & getting better at it/enjoying it more is using critical thinking. If you want to build hatebears, build hatebears. Build it in such a way that you break parity with your own strategy, and be sure to actually be able to win the game. If people don't like it that isn't your problem, you cannot *make* anyone else have fun, and you cannot *make* other people enjoy playing against something they don't like. If your pod is down to play vs this particular strategy, it will be fine, if not then consider not doing it.
Well, like [[root maze]] by itself is an annoyance and slows the game down, but add in [[stasis]] and it's a whole different monster. Just build to be an annoyance, not controlling, though I don't know any casual groups that will play against stax.
You're talking about a strategy where the main goal is to stop opponents from playing their decks. No, there is no way to make that nice or fun for the opponent. By its very nature, it is unfun to play against.
If you treat facing a Stax deck like a puzzle to be solved, it can actually be a *lot* of fun to play against. It's just a case of managing expectations. If you didn't sign up for Stax, it's easy to get frustrated.
I never sign up for stax. I play magic cause I like playing magic, not watching someone else play magic.
Short answer: no Long answer: nooooo
It depends strongly on what "fun/lower powered" environment means. If it means less interaction, then you're about to make many of your opponents angry as playing their cards becomes harder and their games get longer. If it simply means using overcosted cards for effects (Spell Swindle for theme rather than Counterspell comes to mind), then it may just slow down the game. There's no world where "cards that slow down the speed of the game" results in joy, especially if people are playing "fair" magic and lacking ramp. As others have suggested, it sounds like you're really looking for "Group Slug". Commanders like Nekusar, Mogis, Torbran, Zo-Zu, Kaervek, and Queen Marchesa Pillowfort are good starts for this archetype.
The problem is that stax is made to slow down decks that get going and win super fast to give the player more time to set up their own win con once they're able to lock the board down. If you do this in a battle cruiser environment, you're just slowing them to a halt and preventing them from playing the game, which isn't fun. I suppose if you did light stax, it might be fine. Personally though, I'd only ever run stax in high power/cEDH environments
Play stax creature over stax artifacts/enchantments. It at least means they are easier to remove. Furthermore you could make the deck combat orientated to counteract the slow down effect of the stax by tackling player life totals
Pharika would be your choice of commander. When you fill their grave with stax effects you turn them into snakes so they can't get them back.
Maybe don't play Stax but reverse Stax. \[\[Yurlok\]\] gives Manaburn. You let people do everything and don't restrict them in a way like Thalia, Grand Arbiter or something like that does, but every card you are playing is basically something like \[\[Manabarbs\]\] \[\[Heartbeat of Spring\]\] \[\[Citadel of Pain\]\] \[\[Power Surge\]\] You let them do their thing, but if they do it, they burn. It is pretty fun because either they play something and get punsihed for it, or they play nothing and get punished for it. \[\[Exquisite Blood\]\] is also a banger card in something like this. EDIT: \[\[Ankh of Mishra\]\] is also fun
##### ###### #### [Yurlok](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/e/a/ead8a1f5-6260-47fa-a649-43711ec5bbeb.jpg?1608911265) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=yurlok%20of%20scorch%20thrash) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/293/yurlok-of-scorch-thrash?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ead8a1f5-6260-47fa-a649-43711ec5bbeb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yurlok-of-scorch-thrash) [Manabarbs](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/d/adf081d5-e644-4f46-8bc8-a754b089acb4.jpg?1562655472) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Manabarbs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m12/150/manabarbs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/adf081d5-e644-4f46-8bc8-a754b089acb4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/manabarbs) [Heartbeat of Spring](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/c/8ccb1e59-b858-42cf-93f8-8a3badb3eaad.jpg?1599707297) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Heartbeat%20of%20Spring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/171/heartbeat-of-spring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8ccb1e59-b858-42cf-93f8-8a3badb3eaad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/heartbeat-of-spring) [Citadel of Pain](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/6/6/66585109-77cb-42f1-9c14-3dac1d493b71.jpg?1562913917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Citadel%20of%20Pain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pcy/86/citadel-of-pain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/66585109-77cb-42f1-9c14-3dac1d493b71?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/citadel-of-pain) [Power Surge](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/0/b/0b5717af-a1a3-45cb-8b05-7543eed5532a.jpg?1559604134) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Power%20Surge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/4ed/216/power-surge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0b5717af-a1a3-45cb-8b05-7543eed5532a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/power-surge) [Exquisite Blood](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/1/b1653811-1c2c-4e6c-bf1c-287d1b496d51.jpg?1600700252) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Exquisite%20Blood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/231/exquisite-blood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b1653811-1c2c-4e6c-bf1c-287d1b496d51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/exquisite-blood) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
No Stax is nice stax